Anonymous

WE'RE NOT TESCO'S - WE DON'T DO REFUNDS!

I purchased a car from W & M Autos Ltd that are the same dodgy dealers as the Chertsey W & M Autos, but are now based in Byfleet. They have an office in the Big Yellow Storage company and a remote car lot at the end of a cul de sac down the road. The car developed a fault on my journey home. The engine light came on and the car lost power. I made it home and my husband took it out for a drive a couple of hours later and the same thing happened. I called the salesman (Newman) and texted regarding the situation at 7pm that evening - less than 5 hours after purchasing the car. I wanted him to know straight away that I was bringing the car back for a refund and would take my old car back that I had part exchanged. We thought that was the most reasonable outcome - it wouldn't have cost him anything as I was paying to return the car and taking unpaid time off work to do so. We would put it down to bad luck. After ignoring my calls & texts, my husband tried Newman from his phone. Low & behold, he got a text straight back asking who this was. So my husband furnished him with the details and asked him NOT to sell our old car and I would collect it in the morning. The next morning I spoke to Newman on the phone. When I said I was coming to get back my car and get a refund, he said he had got rid of my old car to a scrap dealer. "But its still for sale on eBay", I said. It was still for sale until 10.30am that morning... "We don't do refunds, we're not like Tesco's" he said. I told him that I had a legal right to a refund within 30 days, as the car was not fit for purpose. He then got nasty. "If you are going to talk about legal rights then I'm going to stop talking to you and you can contact me through your solicitor and we can go to court. I've got loads of money to go to court. Or you can talk to me nicely and I can offer to help you out. You can take the car to a garage and get it diagnosed at your own expense. Or you can bring it to me and I will get it diagnosed when its convenient to me". This dealer is 46 miles away from us and I need a car every day, so it was totally impractical for me to return it to him for a diagnosis. When I asked if he could provide me with a courtesy car until mine was fixed I got this gem back - "Courtesy car? Look love, I'm not being funny, we're not Bentley. We just sell cheap cars"... Not feeling brave enough to pitch up for an argument with Newman at the remote car lot and desperately needing a working car, in the end we got the car fixed ourselves - it was that or buy another car and that was the lesser of 2 evils. We are now legally pursuing W&M Auto's Ltd for consequential damages. The moral of this story is to never buy a car without reading some reviews on the dealer first. Had I done that and read all the negative reviews with stories similar to my own, I never would have bought a car from them.